Chapter 17

Plans for Revenge,

and a New Development

 

 

 

Journal Entry

 

“I didn’t know how much either Dormoy or Gaudin knew of the situation, but they had put together that Testagrossa was very worried about Caterina and that the Chevalier, Hugh de Frontenac, whom Gaudin hated almost as much as did Testagrossa, was somehow implicated in all this. Their friend’s pain cried out for justice, for retribution, for revenge, and it would be a potion that they would mix together.

“The three of us came to a halt beneath a chestnut tree, where the footpath from the abbey gates joined the road. By lowering my head, I required Dormoy and Gaudin to lower theirs in order to hear me. Thus huddled with them in conference, I briefly recapitulated the story, by way of prologue to what I would require of them. Then, I turned my attention to Dormoy.

 “‘Claude, you are in the confidence of Brother Anselm, our resident chemist. Get him to prepare for you an herbal concoction that will render our friend, the Chevalier, unconscious for two or three hours. That should do it, I think. It must be tasteless and suitable to be mixed with wine without calling attention to itself. Now go. Make haste.’ Dormoy immediately took his leave and slipped through the Abbey gates.

“’Gaudin, you must return to the quarters of Montgomery’s guards and cultivate the acquaintance of de Frontenac. Tell him that you have among your friends an English nobleman poet who can introduce him to the literary circle around Jeanne of Navarre. You told me that he’s always looking to curry favour with Montgomery, and since the Queen of Navarre holds Montgomery in high regard, this might offer an avenue that he can scarcely resist.’

“‘But why would he believe that I would put myself in a position to be of service to him?’

“‘He’s an egotist,’ I insisted, ‘and so imagines that everybody likes him and that those who don’t know him are just dying to make his acquaintance.’

“‘Why do you want to be introduced to that insufferable, arrogant overblown bag of ass wind?’ asked Gaudin, still puzzled by these arrangements.

“‘We will prepare a surprise for him that he will remember as long as he lives,” I answered, rubbing my hands together in anticipation. ‘Listen, I wish you God speed in your enterprise. I’ll stay here to intercept our friends, when they come out. I hope Testagrossa isn’t trying to get absolution for something he hasn’t done yet. I’ll dissuade him from his intended course by promising a revenge far more painful than death itself, and by assuring him that the Chevalier has already accomplished the damnation of his immortal soul all by himself.’

“With that, Gaudin made his way back to the barracks of the Scottish guard. As for me, I crouched in the shadow of the tree to await the appearance of the seminarian and the serving girl.

“It was Dormoy, however, who emerged from the abbey gate first, looking very much the self-assured alchemist that I had come to recognise of late. His smug, expression proved to be short lived, however, as I suddenly jumped out of the shadows, like the Devil himself, and caused the Provençale to stumble and cry out in panic. ‘Careful,’ he said, after he had recognised me and gained back some of his composure. ‘You’ll make me fall and break the vile that cost me so much trouble to get.’

“‘You got it then? Brother Anselm gave you the potion?’

“‘Yes, but only after I broke down and told him the whole story.’ Dormoy was still panting, quite out of breath. ‘When he found out that it was to help Testa…, I mean, Bernardo, he agreed enthusiastically, and suggested a couple of remedies before we settle on this innocent looking tincture. You know, he’s mad by all the points of the compass, if you ask me.’

“‘So, it’s potent but not deadly?’ I asked, with the slightest twinge of a scruple.

“‘Wait, wait. I’ll tell you everything.’ Dormoy insisted, having by now completely regained his composure. ‘I found him in the herb garden, Anselm, I mean, puttering away at his plants, as if they were children he was tucking into bed. He smiled broadly, when he saw me, because, I guess, he doesn’t get many sympathetic listeners among his brother monks. He asked me how my research was going, if I remembered all of the classical references to an elixir of gold he had confided to me. Then he reached over to one of his family of plants and snapped off a pointed twig. “Here’s rosemary,” he told me. “That’s for your memory.” I didn’t know that a bowl of gruel, with a sprig of rosemary, is good for restoring an addled memory. It calms the nerves, in any event.’

“’So what about the sleeping potion?’ I demanded, with rising impatience.

“‘I’m getting to it,’ protested the devoted alchemist. ‘Hold on, hold on. I had to ease into a discussion like that, sound casual about my request, or else he might panic and send me away. Anyway, we began talking of this or that kind of herbal remedy, and I asked him if there were a leaf or root that would induce deep and long sleep. At that, he frowned and looked concerned, thinking that my forbidden studies disturbed me and kept me awake at night, but I assured him that I was fine. I told him that I needed something for someone else.’

“‘Now he knew that you were keeping something from him,’ I interjected, even more impatient and annoyed. ‘Well done, you dolt!’

“‘Yes, yes, he was as suspicious of my motives and he was certain of my attempts to hide them from him. Well, at that point, I determined that the only way forward was to blurt out the truth. So I told him - everything – about Caterina and de Frontenac and Bernardo. He realised that our big, gentle friend was in great pain. The monk’s concern was genuine. At last, he smiled and said that he knew of several herbal potions that were, at once, quick and powerful but left no lasting effect on either the body or the mind, so undisturbed were the blood’s humours. I nodded in agreement that this was just the thing, so we retired to his laboratory, where we concocted THIS.’

“Dormoy reached into a leather purse that was tied to his belt and pulled out a small vial, stopped with a tiny piece of cork. Inside the vial was a small quantity of transparent liquid, roseate in colour, like a swallow of watered-down wine.

“‘Just three drops of this in a cup of wine is enough to send anyone who drinks it into a deep, death-like sleep, from which the blare of military trumpets would be insufficient to wake him.’

“‘How long will he sleep, thus?’ I asked, my head lowered, the better to gaze into the tiny vial of mischief.

“‘Three, perhaps four hours,’ speculated the alchemist, with the air of an expert on this sort of thing. ‘Then he will awaken, calm, rested and in full possession of his faculties.’

“‘Perfect,’ I said, gently taking the vial from between Dormoy’s outstretched fingers and securing it around my waist. ‘We meet again tomorrow night at the steps of Saint-Séverin. You must be ready to carry a load and to be as unobtrusive about it as if you were transporting a slab of beef from the market. Until then, tell NO ONE of our enterprise.’

“‘Of that, you may rest assured,’ said Dormoy, who appeared to relish putting on the mysterious and equivocal look of a practised alchemist.

“Thus wrapped in his palpable cloak of mystery, Dormoy headed back down the Montaigne Sainte-Geneviève, soon to be swallowed by the shadows of the streets below. I returned to my position, beneath the chestnut tree, to wait, once again, for the wounded giant and the woman for whom he was willing to kill.

“I was not long disappointed, for presently, the great doors opened again to emit a tunnel of light, within which the large bear-like figure of Testagrossa, the thin figure of Caterina and a taller, heavier robed figure could be discerned. The monk had a hand on each of the young peoples’ shoulders, and the young seminarian had taken on a completely different aspect from that of the skulking figure who had entered the abbey not an hour before. He stood straight, to his full height, and his face showed none of the fury and frustration that it had worn before. He looked calm and resolute and dead sure of his every step. It was as if, I thought, a man had emerged in place of the confused and angry boy who had gone inside.

“As they got closer, I could see that the monk was smiling, even joking, and that Testagrossa and Caterina were smiling back, as if nothing, any more, were wrong. Caterina spotted me, standing alone and looking, I suppose, quite baffled. She raised her hand in greeting and beckoned me to their side, as if to confer some confidence.

“‘Henri, we were just now talking about you. Please, please come here; we have something to tell you.’ I approached tentatively, uncertain as to whether my friends had, perhaps, taken leave of their senses, so radical was their change of mood and aspect.

“‘You must stay with me tonight, Bernardo, and not think of going to the right bank. Leave this in my hands. Don’t do anything that you might regret.’

“‘I shall never regret what I am about to do, for as long as we shall live,’ said Testagrossa, wearing a smile that seemed to say that nothing that had transpired that afternoon had, in fact, really taken place. He looked as if he, himself, had taken one of Brother Anselm’s mind altering herbal potions and was somewhere other than in this world of tangible things.

“‘Are you quite all right?’ I asked, not knowing whether to partake of the laughter or to empty a bucket of water on my friend’s head to bring him back to reality.

“Caterina tried to reassure me that they were not at all mad – not in the conventional sense. ‘Please, please, don’t look so worried! Come, we want you to meet Father Bertrand. He’s the Prior here at Sainte-Geneviève’s, and he’s been both Bernardo’s confessor and mine for two years, now. We wouldn’t think of doing this without consulting him, of all people.’

“‘Father, certainly you can’t absolve him for what he is about to do, can you?’

“‘You are Henri Howard, the English student, are you not?’ The priest smiled affably, while extending his right hand. ‘I find nothing requiring forgiveness in Bernardo’s intentions or actions, unless courage and honesty are sins nowadays.’

“‘Henri, I want to marry Caterina and be a father to her child, and to my greatest joy, Caterina wants this, too. Furthermore, we both want you to be our witness,’ declared Testagrossa, his face absolutely radiating happiness and satisfaction.

“‘Are you sure this is what you want, to be father to someone else’s child? What of your calling to the priesthood? I know of no one else who would make a better one.’

“‘A calling, as you say, is from God, and I am called to Caterina’s side with such sweet and compelling force that no one but God could possibly be the author of it.’

“‘Nothing happens to us by accident, young Howard,’ said the priest, looking with approval at their Italian friend. ‘”There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.” Perhaps Caterina is here to call Bernardo, and perhaps Bernardo is here for Caterina. All that we can do is to follow the voice from wherever it comes.’

“I paused momentarily, considering what Father Bertrand had said, but when I spoke, it was to Testagrossa. ‘So you love her, and she loves you?’

“‘I can assure you of the first part, but then, you’ve known that longer than I have. I’ve loved her ever since I first saw her at the Ecurie matching wits with besotted school boys and outwitting the greatest minds of our generation. And she is – how do you say, in your language – most beautified.’

“‘That’s a vile phrase, “She is most beautified!” I can teach you much better.’

“‘Mean you to challenge my Caterina’s beauty?’

“‘I mean no offence, except upon your choice of words. I’m as faithful in my admiration for you, Caterina, as I am in my friendship with this big fellow, over here.’

“Caterina put her slender hand on my arm. ‘Think nothing of it. There is nothing that can dampen our mood tonight, except for one rotten weed that still grows on the compost heap, but even he cannot come between me and my happiness, because very soon what was his will be ours.’

“Testagrossa kissed Caterina tenderly on the lips and, turning aside, clasped the hand of Father Bertrand in a firm grip. Turning back, he offered his arm to Caterina, and strode with new found confidence to the street that leads to the Écurie, there to plan how they would break the news to Caterina’s mother.”